GREENVILLE – John Smith, a retired Maine Forest Service mechanic known for offering others a helping hand, died Sunday of complications attributed to a car-moose accident last year. He was 85.

Smith had been seriously injured in the Aug. 2 accident in Greenville.

Ozzie Wilson of Greenville remembered Sunday a time 22 years ago when he ran out of gasoline while using a backhoe at his home. “I was pretty much down and out” and had little cash to buy more gasoline. “There stood John with a 5-gallon can of gasoline,” he said. Wilson said he never told anyone about his financial situation at the time but somehow Smith knew. “He always knew what people needed.”

Wilson was one of several people who returned Smith’s kindness when Smith’s welding shop on Washington Street burned to the ground a few years ago. Wilson gave Smith a small building, and carpenters and friends volunteered to refinish it.

Recently, when Smith had exhausted his health benefits, firefighters and members of the Masonic Lodge held a benefit supper that raised more than $10,000 for medical care.

“He was a beloved person in town,” Cindy Hanscom, a resident and town employee, said Sunday. “He had a heart as big as gold.” Hanscom said Smith was a “tall, lanky, good-natured man.”

Retired as a mechanic from the state forest service in 1977, Smith never faltered in helping his friends and neighbors. He was well known for his ability to repair most anything and often would do it without pay.

“He was very highly thought of,” Forest Ranger Bruce Reed said. Although Reed came on the staff after Smith had retired, Reed said his reputation was well-known. “He was very well respected, very skilled, very talented and a very hard worker,” he said. “You never heard anybody say a bad word about John,” Reed said.

“He’ll be sorely missed by the community,” Reed said.

Visiting hours will be from 2 to 4 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, April 24, at McCrory Funeral Home. Services will be at 2 p.m. Wednesday, April 25, at the Union Evangelical Church in Greenville.